Archive for the ‘Darfur’ Category

An article on a corruption investigation in Namibia related to Chinese investment there appeared in the NYTimes on Friday. China is confronting the growing pains of being an “imperial” power, as this giant nation increases its FDI and access to raw materials and markets in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere. Just like imperialists that came before, since the scramble for Africa in the late 19th century, bribes and other forms of less-overt control are hard to resist. I explored China’s challenge of cleaning up corrupt practices related to international commerce in an earlier post, and my colleague David Kampf looked into the BRICs rising profile in Africa.

One question is whether China, as it rises, will follow the path of the U.S. (and other Western powers) of attempting to reduce corrupt practices in international commerce. The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 sought to eliminate the bribing of foreign officials and increase the transparency of business relations.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to authorize up to 26,000 troops and police in an effort to stop attacks on millions of displaced people in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Expected to cost more than $2 billion in the first year, the combined United Nations-African Union operation aims to quell violence in Darfur, where more than 2.1 million civilians have been driven from their homes and an estimated 200,000 have died over the last four years.

The resolution allows the use of force in self-defense, to ensure freedom of movement for humanitarian workers and to protect civilians under attack.